Could US charitable giving eclipse the government as a source of aid?
Despite a slowdown in giving to international causes, public giving in the U.S. could soon surpass the government as a source of funding for the aid sector.
By David Ainsworth // 18 July 2025U.S. charitable giving to international causes reached more than $35 billion last year — potentially setting it on a course to surpass the U.S. government — or any other government — as the most important source of aid funding. The figure was revealed in the recent Giving USA 2025 report, which records giving from the public, as well as bequests, and money from philanthropies and corporations. Americans gave $35.54 billion in 2024 to U.S.-based nonprofit organizations which describe themselves as working in the field of international affairs, according to the report, which is published by Giving USA Foundation. The foundation is a public service initiative of the Giving Institute, a membership body for for-profit suppliers which partner nonprofits on philanthropy and fundraising. While “international affairs” includes some money that doesn’t go to international development — for example, it could also include funding to international universities, or funding to a single country, such as Mexico or Israel — the bulk of the funding does go to development causes, according to Jon Bergdoll of the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, which produces the report on behalf of the Giving Institute. How international giving compares to all giving But even though U.S. charitable giving is a growing and vital factor in aid funding, it’s relatively small in comparison to other causes. Giving to international causes represents only around 6% of total U.S giving to nonprofits across all sectors. Altogether, Americans gave $592.5 billion, of which $392 billion came from individuals, nearly $110 billion from foundations, around $46 billion from bequests, and $44 billion from corporations. Giving to nonprofits represents around 2% of all American gross national income, or GNI, while giving to international causes represents 0.12% of GNI. The rise (and somewhat slower rise) of international giving The figures also show that, for a while, U.S. givers were committing more and more to international aid. Since Giving USA started tracking sector-by-sector giving figures in 1987, donations to international aid have risen a lot faster than most other causes, increasing almost ninefold in real terms — faster than any other cause except the environment. But things have reversed in recent years. The past decade has seen giving to international aid increase by less than 15% — slower than giving to all other sectors except for the arts and religion. The latter category has been declining steadily since the 1980s, although it still makes up almost a quarter of all U.S. giving. Giving to international causes really started to spike around 2000, although the report is silent on why that might be. It does roughly coincide with the creation of the Gates Foundation, which began spending billions of dollars on development around that time, and has continued to do so. The early 2000s also saw a rising movement to promote international aid, which peaked at the 2005 Group of Eight advanced economies’ summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. Similarly, the slowdown in giving to international causes in the last decade roughly coincides with the first election of U.S. President Donald Trump, and the rise of anti-internationalist rhetoric that accompanied the “Make America Great Again” movement, but once again there is no hard evidence to show the two facts are connected. This year’s figure does not represent a record for international giving by Americans. The highest ever figure was in 2021, when a $10 billion gift to a little known organization, the SDG Impact Fund, based in Cartersville, Georgia, USA, pushed total giving up to $45.5 billion. However this year marks the second-highest real terms figure. How public giving compares to the US government These figures suggest that in the future, U.S. public giving is likely to be as important a source of funding for aid as official development assistance, or ODA. In 2024, U.S. ODA was $63.3 billion — 78% more than public giving. But if current levels of giving hold steady, and if the Republican administration succeeds in passing its budget proposals, that ratio will change drastically in 2025. Total spending on U.S. foreign assistance is currently slated to drop to around $38 billion in the fiscal year ending September 2025 — putting it roughly on a par with public giving. Foreign assistance spending will then fall to $28 billion in the following fiscal year — creating the potential for public funding for aid to rise above the level of government support. And given that Germany is also reducing its aid, which last year sat at $32 billion, there’s some chance that by the end of 2026, the American public might be the biggest funder of international aid, anywhere in the world.
U.S. charitable giving to international causes reached more than $35 billion last year — potentially setting it on a course to surpass the U.S. government — or any other government — as the most important source of aid funding.
The figure was revealed in the recent Giving USA 2025 report, which records giving from the public, as well as bequests, and money from philanthropies and corporations.
Americans gave $35.54 billion in 2024 to U.S.-based nonprofit organizations which describe themselves as working in the field of international affairs, according to the report, which is published by Giving USA Foundation. The foundation is a public service initiative of the Giving Institute, a membership body for for-profit suppliers which partner nonprofits on philanthropy and fundraising.
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David Ainsworth is business editor at Devex, where he writes about finance and funding issues for development institutions. He was previously a senior writer and editor for magazines specializing in nonprofits in the U.K. and worked as a policy and communications specialist in the nonprofit sector for a number of years. His team specializes in understanding reports and data and what it teaches us about how development functions.